If you’re a Democratic State Central Committee delegate, you can publicly register notice of your intended vote here, so that delegates considering voting for someone who look like they don’t have a prayer of winning may coalesce among the more viable candidates and help to winnow out the field.(Hey, at least it’s a workable theory — and anyway nothing else has worked!)

PREFACE

[NOTE: If you’re a Democratic State Central Committee delegate and just want to enter your preferences, skip down to the number of your Regional Pre-Endorsement Caucus and then enter your intended votes in comments. Remember, these votes will be public anyway — we’ll all be able to look them up and I’ll be able to publish them here, but many (like mine) will have been mailed or emailed in ahead of time.

So your only chance to help winnow the field down to a reasonable 2 or 3 candidates — enough to pretty much ensure that at least one Democrat makes the Top 2 and can participate in the general election — is to post your own TOP, or failing that TOP 2, or AT MOST your top 3 choices here. (If another website wants to do the same, great. We’ll combine all credible information.)

Every other attempt to winnow down the candidate fields has failed! This attempt may fail too — a candidate may still think that their funding or experience or charm or endorsements or policy positions mean that it’s worth their risking a total car wreck from which no Dems survive June rather than bowing out of the race before damage has been done — but at least we’ll have tried.

Again, if you’re a delegate in a hurry, skip the next few paragraphs — but if you can already commit to a vote, please do so while you can still influence others’ votes and prevent the DEMOPOCALYPSE! My own first (and final! — those are the rules!) vote will be sent in on Thursday, and may well be determined by whether the results of YOUR CHOICES suggest that MY preferred candidates are viable!

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2. BACKGROUND

Orange County is supposed to be the Center of the Political Universe this year when it comes to determining whether Democrats capture the House of Representatives. The potential for humiliation is therefore huge.

Each district is winnable for Dems, but even if they’re about 52-48 blue, then two Republicans with 24% of the vote each will easily beatthree Dems with about 17% each.

THAT is our stupid primary system! But people won’t understand that outside of the state — all they will understand is DONALD TRUMP TWEETING THAT REPUBLICANS SHUT OUT DEMOCRATS IN FOUR OF THE TOP DEMOCRATIC PARTY TARGETED RACE.

THOSE ARE THE STAKES! AFFECTING THE UNDERSTANDING OF TRUMP’S POPULARITY NATIONALLY AND THROUGH NOVEMBER (AND BEYOND).

A WORD TO CANDIDATES: But it’s still worth “playing chicken” over stubbornly refusing to drop out, right? Well WE WILL HAVE VOTE TOTALS in June and THE WHOLE COUNTRY WILL KNOW WHO TO BLAME FOR OC’s DEMOPOCALYSE!!

(Are you comfortable with the culprit being you?)

A WORD TO DSCC DELEGATES: For by far most of you, this isn’t your fault. It’s an insane system with a (deservedly) weak state party and a local party that has squandered its credibility by trying to squeeze Democrats like Josh Newman and Farrah Khan out of previous races — in my opinion based upon who is and isn’t “a member of the (anti-leftist) club.”

ALL YOU HAVE TO DO to help avoid the OC Demopocalypse is to say NOW, while it’s early enough to form a consensus, who you favor in the primary. If someone gets over 50%, then the smarter among the other candidates — all of whom have been calling you to get your vote! — stand a chance of dropping out, especially when we finally have an objective basis to demand that they do so…

… BUT IT WILL NOT HAPPEN AT NEXT WEEKEND’S MEETING! Most votes will either be emailed in by Thursday morning or emailed in by Friday evening. If you want to work towards a cruel-but-fair consensus, you have to ACT PRETTY MUCH NOW! The best plan I have to offer is for you to POST YOUR INTENDED VOTES (or at least post your 2-3 finalists) FOR CONGRESS below.

3. HERE ARE YOUR CHOICES

Bold Text indicates a candidate has filed with the CDPItalic Text indicates a candidate is a potential candidate
An * next to a candidate’s name indicates incumbent status

Region 15 Pre-Endorsement Conference

Assembly Districts

AD 55

Gregg Fritchle*

(NOTE: FRITCHLE WILL BOW OUT TO ANY REASONABLE CANDIDATE. IF YOU LIVE (OR ARE PRETENDING TO LIVE) IN DISTRICT 55, WHICH INCLUDES YORBA LINDA, YOU CAN RUN HERE AND WIN!)

Other

Senate Districts

None are up

Congressional Districts

CD 38

Linda Sanchez*

Other

CD 39

Jay Chen

Gil Cisneros

Andy Thorburn

Sam Jammal

Phil Janowicz

Mai-Khanh Tran

Cybil Steed

Other probable candidates not signed up for CDP endorsement include as of the morning of 1/22 include: Ted Rusk, Suzi Park Leggett, and Herbert Lee

Other

Region 17 Pre-Endorsement Conference

State Senate

SD 34

Gerrie Schipske

Other

[Note: Jestin Samson is also running, and would presumably want a “no endorsement” vote.]

Assembly Districts

AD 65

Sharon Quirk-Silva*

Other

AD 68

Michelle Duman

Other

AD 69

Tom Daly*

Ana Martinez

Other

AD 72

Josh Lowenthal

Other

CD 46

Lou Correa

Other

Region 18 Pre-Endorsement Conference

Assembly Districts

AD 73

Scott Rhinehart

Other

AD 74

Catherine “Cottie” Petrie-Norris

Other

Senate Districts

SD 36

Marggie Castellano

Other

Congressional District

CD 45

Brian Forde

Dave Min

Katie Porter

Kia Hamadanchy

Other probable candidates not signed up for CDP endorsement include as of the morning of 1/22 include: Ron Varasteh, Greg Ramsay, and Eric Rywalski

Other

CD 48

Hans Keirstead

Michael Kotick

Laura Oatman

Rachel Payne

Boyd Roberts

Harley Rouda

Omar Siddiqui

Tony Zardakes

CD 49

Doug Applegate

Sara Jacobs

Paul Kerr

Mike Levin

Christina Prejean

Other probable candidates not signed up for CDP endorsement include as of the morning of 1/22 include: none

IF YOU ARE A DELEGATE, leave your Congressional District and your top 1, 2, or 3 preferences (ranked or not) in a comment from your real email address — and I can check, and may contact you to confirm! — below.

Any spoofing of email addresses will be investigated and reported both to the CDP and FPPC, insofar as is possible. NO PRIVATE INFORMATION WILL BE SHARED WITH ANY CAMPAIGN other than what is published here.

Note to NON-DEMS — we’re usually very tolerant in keeping comments from all but the most repugnant sinkholes. But, this is not the place for you to mess up our straw poll. If you want to have your own straw pre-endorsement poll here, let us know and give us the text. If we know that you’re just messing around, your comments will — at best — be transported to our Weekly Open Thread. At best!

About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose worker's rights and government accountability attorney, residing in northwest Brea. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption.
Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight.
Occasionally runs for office to challenge some nasty incumbent who would otherwise run unopposed. (Someday he might pick a fight with the intent to win rather than just dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.) He got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012 and in 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002.
None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level, nor do they now.
A family member co-owns a business offering campaign treasurer services to Democratic candidates and the odd independent. He is very proud of her. He doesn't directly profit from her work and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he truly hated.)
He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)

I can’t recall it even being discussed! I had thought that you meant Josh.

I’ll ask Josh if he knows!

Ryan Cantor

Posted January 23, 2018 at 5:41 PM

Color me shocked.

Shocked.

Greg Diamond

Posted January 24, 2018 at 8:50 AM

I get that you are portraying the emotion of “shock” here, but I don’t see why. There’s no clearly preferable option, either ethically or tactically. Courtesy to the person facing the recall seems like a pretty good position.

Is that last sentence what you find shocking?

Ryan Cantor

Posted January 24, 2018 at 2:31 PM

No, it’s that after a year of violating the Constitutional rights of this district and lying about people being duped, you (the party) still doesn’t have a candidate.

“Violating constitutional rights?” Ryan, that’s bullshit and undermines your usually well-thought-out take on events. By this you seem to mean “protecting their right to hold an election with the smallest possible expected electorate.” That’s not a “constitutional right” and attempts to abuse the recall right in a way to cherry-pick the electorate are perfectly fine to address legislatively. And y’all should be ashamed of trying to get as small an electorate as possible. It is racist as well as cowardly.

The party is fully behind Josh, in any public discussion or private discussion that I’m likely to hear. The only way you’d see a Democrat run would be to get in the way of any reprobate Democrat who had any inclination to sandbag him.

CD39 here, as a currently registered Dem, I would just hope any of those Delegates reading – and any part officer hears out now – Swing Left, or get two Republicans. No more centrist representation – it’s now or never. If I had to pick from given list – Jay Chen would be my favorite horse – but all that would change with a sniff of line towing the establishment Corporate control of either party.

Jammal and Tran are good too. Seriously, none of the top six are less than decent. The consideration you raise — which I think of as “who can play for the varsity team?” is the one that also guides me, though. I’ll have more to say on this after tonight’s forum (which I still hope to attend.)

JANOWITZ: local former professor, very nice guy, strong ties to local activist community, will not be outflanked on his left, longstanding ties to district

TRAN: smart pediatrician, has decent financial resources, only woman among leading Dems, Asian, progressive, woman-and-a-doctor (said twice here because that’s what she does)

THORBURN: whip smart, successful businessman, probably at please 10%-of-billionaire, insurance executive who no one seems to think did anything wrong in his niche practice, civil rights and teaching background, otherwise progressive, seems canny in his use of funds

I’d be be proud to have any of them as my rep in Congress. Unless all of Huff, Kim, and Nelson stay in the race, I don’t expect to have any of them on my ballot in November. (And “3R vs. 6D” may still not be enough for 2 Ds to get through.)